Tom Buchanan's East Wind retells, with precision and an abundance of details, the complex story of the relationship between the British left and China—or, rather, between the left and its shifting image of what China represented. As Buchanan emphasizes repeatedly throughout the volume, China presented the left with a “confusing multiplicity of faces” (p. vii). In the very eventful half century that Buchanan examines, China's “face” changed as relations between China and Great Britain shifted, and as China assumed a new prominence in the global context. The perception of China was also often determined through a triangulation with the position of the USSR, which remained the primary referent of the British left.

The introduction to the volume describes the background of the relationship between China and the British left as it took shape in the 1910s, when Chinese nationalism emerged and the British left remade itself in the light of the Russian revolution. (The Communist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1920.) The subsequent chapters of East Wind offer a straightforward narrative, which can broadly be divided into four major phases, according to what “face” of China dominated the left's imagination. In the 1920s, and especially after the May Thirtieth movement of 1925, China stood as a symbol of anti-imperialist struggle—one in which Britain was the main imperial power (p. 39). In the 1930s and 1940s, China was viewed mainly as an ally in the war against fascism, although the ambivalent position of the Soviet Union vis-à-vis Nazi Germany and Japan created a temporary but major split between British communists and non-communist leftists. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the successes of socialist reconstruction fascinated the left, and this was the period in which the People's Republic of China enjoyed broad-based support in the United Kingdom. The Sino-Soviet split and the explosion of the first Chinese atomic bomb fractured this pro-China front, and with the Cultural Revolution, China ceased to appeal to the majority of the left and became the focus of attention of a small minority of revolutionary “Maoists.”

There is much to praise in East Wind. Buchanan's description is based on meticulous and painstaking research. He adopts a fairly wide definition of the left, which includes the parties “left” of Labour (such as the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party) as well as the left within the Labour Party. But he also provides extensive coverage of leftist intellectuals (Joseph Needham, Joan Robinson, Michael Lindsay, Kingsley Martin, and others) as well as organizations that were not directly or explicitly affiliated with one party but played a role in the U.K.-China relationship, such as the China Campaign Committee, the British-China Friendship Association, and the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding. Because of this extensive focus, Buchanan is able to trace the wide range of groups, associations, and personalities that contributed to shape the shifting idea of China for the left. But also, and perhaps more importantly, he shows how both personal conflicts and international events were refracted in the history of pro-China organizations, and how this history sets the British left in a global context.

Buchanan's choice of chronological scope is also very useful: by not confining himself to the post-1949 period, he is able to show a longer trajectory of leftist connections, within which the contributions of people such as Joseph Needham and Kingsley Martin become clearer. Finally, Buchanan avoids major mistakes in his account of major episodes in Chinese history, and the overall tone is quite balanced.

The prose of East Wind is clear but at times a bit dry. Buchanan calls forth so many names, organizations, and acronyms that the reader—especially one not familiar with the intricacies of modern British history—is often at risk of getting lost. Also, the sheer amount of information prevents Buchanan from creating any memorable portrait or scene: for a book so full of incredibly interesting characters and eventful moments, it is surprising that in the end none is memorable. Patrick Wright's recent Passport to Peking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) provides a stark contrast with East Wind: the former is messy, quirky, written with gusto, and full of memorable characters, yet so tightly textured as to be unwieldy as a scholarly source; the latter is precise, clearly laid out, and an excellent reference for any student of the role of China in the world, but it lacks in narrative verve.

Finally, I am puzzled by the absence of a stated argument. One wishes that the author had, for a moment, extracted himself from the nitty-gritty of the details to argue, in a more general fashion, what the political significance of this fraught relationship was. The book presents a parade of revolutionary and moderate leftists whose fascination with China was lifelong or temporary, whose love or disdain for China was often justified on the basis of very little actual knowledge, and whose loyalties were always tested and often splintered. From this very rich material, one would expect a more elaborated lesson than that it was complicated. Although it was indeed complicated.